THE SIBYL IN HER GRAVE

Julia Larwood receives a letter from her aunt detailing some unexpected tax problems. Her friend, the ambiguously gendered Oxford professor Hilary Tamar, and fellow barristers uncover evidence of insider trading and blackmail. Most of the action in this mystery is revealed through letters, and narrator Eva Haddon’s whispered intensity makes the listener privy to everyone’s secrets. Her voice is lovely, breathy, throaty, deep. In the author’s parody of a novel of manners, Haddon delivers the expected stock characters--tight-lipped spinsters, tight-fisted bankers, and a cleric who is usually tight. When Caudwell adds a psychic counselor who may be leaking stock tips, undercurrents of nontraditional sexual orientation, and a couple of murders, Haddon’s performance adds just the right contemporary flavor. Sadly, Caudwell, the witty, erudite author of three other novels, died in 2000. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 05]